Photo via Tennessee Athletics

Tennessee baseball is altering its starting pitching plan entering this weekend’s series at No. 8 Arkansas. The Vols are starting the same three pitchers that they used last weekend against Vanderbilt but will use them in a different order.

Liam Doyle, who has been Tennessee’s best asset and the league’s top pitcher, will start in game two of the series Friday night. This will be the first weekend all season that Doyle hasn’t started the first game for the Vols,

Doyle has already had an adversity filled few weeks. Against Auburn, he threw just one inning on Friday due to a weather delay before throwing two innings of relief on Sunday. Then last week against Vanderbilt, Doyle fought through a bad blister that led to him bleeding.

Due to the increased workload on Doyle the last few weeks, Tennessee decided to throw him on Friday night so he could have a normal week of build up.

“My only concern for Liam in general is just, we’ve asked him to do a lot with the Friday (Auburn), the Sunday (Auburn), and then 100 pitches Friday (Vanderbilt) despite the hand starting to get bloody and things like that,” Vitello said. “Again, you want to talk about not wanting to do things over again? I would never want to redo things to where we don’t get a year around Liam Doyle, but it is only a year. … So, I’m no patron saint, but I want to look out for him a little bit.”

Marcus Phillips will start for Tennessee in Thursday night’s series opener. It’s now a quick turnaround for Phillips who started last Saturday against Vanderbilt, allowing five earned runs in 3.2 innings pitched. It was Phillips worst outing of the season and Vitello was criticized Phillips’ inability to hold runners while talking to the media following the outing.

More From RTI: Everything Tennessee HC Tony Vitello Said Following Senior Day Win Over Belmont

What does Vitello want to see from Phillips after a rough outing against Vanderbilt?

“To pitch as confidently as he has at times,” Vitello said. “I think confidence is a choice, and there’s been times where he’s clearly competing, but there’s times where Q (Quentin Eberhardt) will nudge him about it more than I will, but you can see self belief at times. … He just needs to have the self belief that he has earned at this point. And you know he’s going to go out there and compete.”

Despite his inability to control the running game, Phillips has been Tennessee’s second most effective pitcher in SEC play. In nine starts, Phillips has posted a 4.47 ERA and 1.34 WHIP in 44.1 innings pitched.

Freshman Tegan Kuhns will start for Tennessee in game three Saturday. The freshman moved back into a starting role last weekend against Vanderbilt after a brief reprieve in the bullpen. Kuhns has a 4.23 ERA and 1.51 WHIP in 27.2 innings pitched in SEC play this season.

“I think we’d have to come up with something pretty creative to not do that,” Vitello said of Kuhns starting game three. “Tegan threw the ball great the last two times out. I think if anything, the argument is, you know, to let him ride a little bit, but you know, you don’t want to say that to yourself and box yourself in because you don’t know what’s going to be going on, more than likely day three of the series, for him.”

Tennessee enters its final series of the regular season having lost four straight weekend series and five of its last six weekend series. The Vols enter the weekend 40-13 (15-12 SEC) and badly in need of a series victory for its chances of hosting a regional in Knoxville.